


Never Free You

by Chummy



Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreams vs. Reality, Iconic honestly, M/M, akechi's orange coat, akira cries, are we surprised lmao, i love asshole akechi so much, my take on the bad ending, so does akira, sorta lol, they kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chummy/pseuds/Chummy
Summary: At first he didn’t notice.Everything seemed so perfectly normal. Natural. Real.The sun still rose with its pleasant heat in the mornings and replaced with the cool light of the moon at night. The clouds drifted overhead of the city, buzzing with life and conversation. The wind ran through his dark curls, a gently frigid breeze of fingers against his scalp. Sojiros curry tasted the same, coffee heated and made the same, the same layer of dust that coated all his belongings. All things that grounded Akira to his reality.Until he did notice and like the first time, like always, he had Goro Akechi to blame for that.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 86





	Never Free You

**Author's Note:**

> suppppppppp.
> 
> so i have not finished royal, and ive been kinda spoiler free not really but kinda. i wanted to take a spin on it so, this is either very loosely based off canon or I somehow blindly hit the nail on the head. kasumi isnt in here cause i dont know enough about her at all, i love her so much though. 
> 
> Just wanted to kinda do my own take with the bare amount of info of endgame i have, so i guess this could be kinda be considered an AU. kinda? idk lmao.

———

_Sleek gloved hands moved over ivory pieces, thumbing at the crown of a proud queen, tapping the sides of the few remaining pawns. Between them a timer softly counted down with rhythmical tics. Akira rolled his eyes at the display, the act of feigning decision and deliberation._

_Gloved hands moved a pawn, taking one of Akira’s own shiny black pieces. A loss he could still win with. A practiced move that proved his charade of thinking was all it was. Akechi smirked as he tapped on the timer, resetting it for Akira’s turn._

_Akira can’t remember when they’d up the challenges in their games of chess. If he tried hard enough he could probably pinpoint it to around the time Akechi joined them as a full fledged Phantom Thief. If he tried harder he’d remember it was around the time he figured out exactly who Akechi was._

_But by then he’d lost count of how many games Akechi and him were playing. But he knew, Akechi was always keeping score._

_The clock tic toc’d between them, Akira brushed his fingers against Akechi's own, his right hand that laid resting next to the board. Akechi pretends not to tense up at that, Akira doesn’t pretend to notice. He moves his knight, advancing into Akechi’s territory, a threat._

_He resets the clock._

_Akechi doesn’t move his left hand away, continuing his previous act of contemplation, before swiftly capturing another one of Akira’s pieces. His smirk is full of teeth this time and Akira wants to feel them on his skin._

_“You seem distracted, Akira,” Akechi’s voice is swift, powerful like always, never wasting a breath._

_Akira chuckles, the clock tics. “Glad your distractions are working then?” Akira knows he is. He can’t help but ask anyways. Akechi’s eyes gleam with satisfaction and a rush Akira has familiarized himself with as pride._

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, trailing a finger down his King. Akira follows the movement because that’s what Akechi wants._

_He moves his knight closer to Akechi’s king as an answer, resets the seconds and fiddles with the fingers of Akechi’s right hand. The leather is smooth and warm under his affections._

_Akechi scoffs and swiftly takes Akira’s knight with his rook, the glass pieces clacking loudly against each other a blaring contradiction as Akechi flips his right hand over, offering Akira his palm to explore. It makes the sting of the loss significantly less._

_Akira smiles as he resets the clock. Chess game forgotten as he continues to play his favorite game of them all._

_“Think you’re gonna win?” voice low and knowingly pushing buttons. Akechi only blinks back at him, hand still in Akira’s, mouth a cheeky smile._

_Akechi’s hair moves with his body, tickles against his neck as he pushes himself closer to Akira over the table. Until Akira can smell his cologne, and his full lashes cast shadows against the tops of his cheeks._

_“I know I am,” he replies, Akira can feel the words on his lips. The leathered hand beneath his own flipping to interlace with his fingers in a vice grip that seems to burn straight to the bone._

_Akira can’t get enough._

_The soft trilling of the clock burst through the air._

_Akechi sits back in his seat, his heat still lingered as his smile widens with the success of his win._

_Akira ran out of time._

  
  


———

At first he didn’t notice. 

Everything seemed so perfectly normal. Natural. Real. 

The sun still rose with its pleasant heat in the mornings and replaced with the cool light of the moon at night. The clouds drifted overhead of the city, buzzing with life and conversation. The wind ran through his dark curls, a gently frigid breeze of fingers against his scalp. Sojiros curry tasted the same, coffee heated and made the same, the same layer of dust that coated all his belongings. All things that grounded Akira to his reality. 

Until he did notice and like the first time, like always, he had Goro Akechi to blame for that. 

———

It was just a few days into the new year, he’d been having trouble remembering the exact date lately, days seemingly passing by in a repeating blur. Routine. 

His steps echoed as he walked along the familiar easy route to Leblanc, passing the same faces, stepping amongst the same dotted shadows of clouds.

The bell rings softly above him, door creaking with its old wood, his instantly met with the aroma and coffee and curry that he’s found a home in. He breathes it in, eyes closing as he inhales and sends a smile to Sojiro over a light brown head of hair. 

His breath catches in his throat at that. The light that dances across honey locks seems to choke him and the wine eyes that meet his, as their owner turns in his direction feel like a warning shot. 

“Akechi,” he breathes, the world feels hazy, everything but Akechi unfocused as Goro Akechi commands every atom of Akira’s being to his attention. 

“Akira,” he answers back, voice overflowing with cheerfulness, over exaggerated, even for the frequent celebrity appearances. It’s the first time Akira feels his world shift, a sick feeling of something being so very wrong crawling up his back.

Akechi is still looking at him, eyes wide and expressive and Akira silenced the many alarm bells in his head, instead giving Akechi a smile. The same smile he always gives him, warm, inviting, _his._

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Akechi says, he twirls the spoon in his untouched coffee as Akira sits down next to him, putting his bag down and shoving Morgana softly for him to go upstairs. 

“Hope I didn’t keep you too long,” he replies, unable to remember if his trek home took longer than usual or not. The sick feeling in his gut returned, Akechi laughed and the world rights itself again. 

“I don’t mind waiting up on you, in any case I was gonna invite you out anyways tonight so,” Akechi throws him a smile, full of teeth and splitting his face as he leans his head on his ungloved hands. 

Akira tries to keep his eyes from bulging out of his head, tries to keep from ogling at the same time as he ignores the way every hair on his body rises on end. 

Akechi’s fingers, long and perfect, not a hangnail in sight, nails perfectly groomed and squared. 

_He can feel them on his arms, scratching angry lines, blunt nails breaking skin. But they’re different, they’re bitten, chewed and rough on his skin. He can feel a hiss at the back of his throat as the scratches burn._

The memory catches him off guard. Memory? It doesn’t feel like his own. It feels so very far away.

He shakes his head of his disjointed thoughts, his hair tickling the tops of his ears as he does. When was the last time he got a haircut? He couldn’t remember. 

“So what do you say?” Akechi’s voice brings him back, his eyes are bright and full of question, mouth turned in a smile that says he already knows Akira’s answer. 

“Lead the way,” he answers and the laugh Akechi gives him makes his head spin with delight. 

He changes his clothes in a blur, blurts out his goodbye to Sojiro as Akechi’s hand wraps around his own and all but pulls him out the door and toward the station. 

The sensation of his bare skin on Akira’s leaves him jumpy, nerves sparking under his skin. He can barely manage to stop a flinch as Akechi intertwines their fingers together as the roar of the subway surrounds them. 

No one bats an eye. No one looks their way. No one shouts in alarm or shock at seeing The Goro Akechi holding his hand. 

Akira feels elated and equal parts like throwing up. He doesn’t know why. 

But with every second that Akechi doesn’t let go, every feather light touch to the hip as they walk next to each other, how his touches grow bolder and firmer as the night goes on, Akira can’t shake the feeling that something is so very very wrong. 

They play darts first, he manages to steal a win by a stroke of luck the first time. Akechi smiles at him and challenges him to pool. 

The challenge feels familiar, the competition between him and Akechi a comfortable home. His world focuses on Akechi again and everything feels so very right. 

“Think you can make that?” Akechi’s voice is teasing, leaning on his pool stick, staring at Akira as he lines up his shot from the other end. They were tied, this shot deciding his winning or losing. 

He throws a glare at Akechi over the rim of his glasses, not impressed at his attempts at a distraction. Akechi only smiles and Akira thanks his reflexes for not failing him in that moment because wow Akechi looked so beautiful. 

“What do you think?” he replies, saving himself from voicing his actual thoughts.

“I think you should tilt a bit to the left.”

Akira scoffs and Akechi’s smile widens. It all feels so familiar.

“You’re trying to sabotage me,” he says with a laugh, joking and light. Akechi doesn’t answer, Akira spares another look his way and feels his entire world stop. 

Akechi’s face was different, something Akira had never seen before spiraling behind his full lashes and eyes. Stern yet decidedly unhinged. Akira doesn’t understand why the fuck it feels so familiar. 

The world seems to shift. 

Akira can’t breathe. 

In an instant it passes.

“I already have,” Akechi replies, voice icy despite the warmth that returned to his eyes and demeanor. He juts his chin out at Akira, reminding him of his untaken shot, fingers tapping somewhat impatiently on his own stick.

Akira hears more than feels him take the shot, the ball dropping into socket, hitting Akechi’s last one further away from his goal, solidifying his win. Akira doesn’t feel the usual rush of winning, the pride that replaces the blood in his veins, that fills him with a glowing ego that he knows he wears well. 

He feels like he’s full of sand, sluggish, unable to breathe as his throat burns with an anguished scream that he won’t let out. He doesn’t know where the feeling comes from, but it feels like a second skin. 

He comes back to himself with a hand to his back, Akechi congratulating him on his wins and promising to get him back the next time. All traces of his earlier cold look gone. Akira breathes in slowly, gives Akechi another smile and lets himself be pulled in by his fingers on his skin again, to the night air.

They separate at the station, Akechi wishes him a good night and suddenly his touch is gone and Akira is standing in his room again. 

Morgana is already asleep, curled up on his pillows, Akira is just barely settling into sleep himself when his phone vibrates near his head. 

**From: Goro:**

**Thank you for spending time with me today.**

Akira can’t help the warmth that spreads through his body. Thinking back to the day's events, replaying how Akechi had looked at him when he accepted his invitation, to how Akechi’s hand felt on his own. His fingers move to reply back when his body stops cold.

The blaring feeling of alarm returning with full force, refusing to be ignored this time, without a Goro Akechi to keep it at bay. 

He thinks back at the day's events. Going over them slowly, every detail, every moment. As his breath starts to come out shorter and shorter. The dark of the attic feeling so suffocating instead of the home he had made it to be. 

He realizes slowly, ice crawling up his spine, he doesn’t remember the train ride home that afternoon. He doesn’t remember anything from school. He doesn’t remember waking up that morning. 

He only remembers Akechi.

He sits up all at once, managing to not wake Morgana up somehow and tries to catch his breath. 

_What the fuck is going on?_ He thinks, phone in his hand as he re reads Goro’s message. 

He doesn’t reply. 

———

Akira doesn’t remember waking up the next day either, doesn’t know what day it’s supposed to even be. The world around him felt disjointed despite how _normal_ everything looked. Not one speck of dust out of place, Morgana still heavy on his back, his phone buzzing with his friends messages and requests. 

This was his life wasn’t it?

Distantly he wondered if this was a side effect of going into the metaverse, he wanted to believe that it was finally taking a more permanent toll on him. 

But when he stopped going to Mementos for a week and he still didn’t feel grounded in reality, he abandoned that thought. 

Had it even been a week? Why couldn’t he remember? 

He was sitting at the farthest booth in Leblanc, textbooks open but not processing a single word, group chat making his phone buzz loudly against the wood. 

He wasn’t freaked out enough yet to tell the others, he wondered when he would be. 

**Group: Bad Bitches Reforming Society**

**From: Ryuji:**

**you’re all coming to the track meet right?**

Oh yeah. That was happening. Akira can’t believe he had almost forgotten. 

**From: Ann:**

**obv, me n shiho did NOT waste our time on posters for nothing so u better win Sakamoto**

He let out a laugh, remembering the amount of art supplies Ann had made him and Yusuke carry. 

**Akira:**

**no pressure tho**

**From: Yusuke**

**What day is it again? it might overlap with Senseis exhibit.**

Akira felt his stomach twist and tried to stop his hands shaking as he continued to read.

**From: Ryuji**

**hasn’t been decided yet but i’ll let you know in advance**

**From: Ryuji**

**emphasis on in advance so there’s NO EXCUSE**

**From: Yusuke**

**anyways.**

**From: Akechi**

**Do we need to buy tickets? I’ve never had the chance to go to a meet of any kind before!**

Akira’s heart beats faster and he has to retype his message three times.

**Akira:**

**we get it you’re a nerd.**

Charming, he thinks.

**From: Ryuji**

**nah no worries about all that**

**From: Akechi**

**Thank you Ryuji!**

**From: Akechi**

**Akira, you can talk when your GPA is higher than mine.**

Akira can’t help the smile that rips out of him, just like he can’t stop the way his blood turns to ice and fear constricts his throat whenever Akechi is involved.

He doesn’t know what to make of it. It isn’t enough to stop him from seeing him as much as possible.

———

It’s hot at the track meet. Akira is jealous of his friends foresight of bringing refreshments but in his defense he's been preoccupied dealing with constant feeling of existential doom. 

Next to him Akechi laughs at his sweaty dehydrated face and Akira wants to be mad but can’t. Not when Akechi is smiling, with the sunlight painting him golden and brightening his eyes even more. Akira feels the butterflies in his stomach flutter up and up and die in his throat when he looks at Akechi for too long. 

He’s almost gotten used to the conflicting emotions by now.

“Ryuji’s next!” Ann’s excitement drags him from his thoughts, moving to stand and shake her very glittery sign back and forth. 

He hears his other friends yell as well, encouragements and different chants of Ryuji’s name. He moves to stand as well, as Akechi shoves a cold soda can into his hand.

“Not looking so great leader,” he says, the words feel jagged, a taunt. He looks up to see Akechi’s mouth sweet and eyes syrupy, not matching his tone of voice at all.

Akira swallows around nothing, he wasn’t sure if it was the sun or Akechi’s eyes that were cooking him alive. 

The starter gun goes off.

_He remembers the smell of blood. Cold unforgiving metal against his wrists, gunpowder burning his lungs_. 

When he comes too Ryuji has won, broken a new record, Akira watches him celebrate with his teammates, sweaty and overjoyed. He feels Ann shake him in excitement, he forces a smile. 

Next to him Akechi laughs. Full of pride and almost rage. Akira doesn’t look over to see his face, he knows what he looks like. 

Distantly he thinks that laugh fits Akechi better than the interview chuckles and giggles he hides behind his fist. It feels familiar. Akira is starting to hate why. 

“Leg didn’t fail him huh?” Akechi says, despite the volume of the cheers at Shujin’s win, he hears Akechi loud and clear. Akira doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he looks at Ryuji, and feels nothing but guilt. 

  
  


———

His interactions with Akechi continued the same for a while, Akira had given up on trying to keep time, the clock face looking foreign to him and the sun seemed to move across the sky as it pleased, free against the laws of nature. 

He went through his days. Trying to ignore the sun setting, the way the clouds didn’t seem to move and disappear suddenly. The way the wind always mussed his hair was too warm for the beginning of the year. The way Sojiro’s curry started to taste like nothing in his mouth, how the dust in his room never left. 

He tried until he couldn’t. Until he couldn’t shake the feeling of how wrong everything was, how he stared at his hands until they didn’t look like his own, how he couldn’t look in the mirror, how Akechi’s voice was so much colder and yet the only thing that felt real.

Akira didn’t realize he had picked up his phone and dialed Akechi's number until the automated voice message broke through his thoughts. He barely had time to pocket it when his phone buzzed again.

**From: Akechi**

**Busy. what do you want?**

Ouch. 

That stung. Yet Akira couldn’t be more grateful for it. The cold shoulder felt natural, felt better than anything had felt like in who knows how long. 

**Akira:**

**meet?**

**From: Akechi**

**Yes.**

He smiled as his stomach turned in knots. 

———

Akechi looks good in orange, is what Akira chooses to focuses on. Equal parts because he wants too and because he couldn’t look away if he tried. 

The look was different, but it didn’t feel out of place. 

“Any specific reason you wanted to meet?” They shared greetings, fleeting and ornamental, Akira didn’t feel bad at the way Akechi seemed to be brushing him off. Instead he sets up their chess board, letting the sound of the pieces fill the air as he gathers his thoughts. 

“Need your opinion on something,” he decides is the best way to start, ease his overwhelming feeling of _wrongness_ slowly. Akechi only nods and moves a pawn.

Game start. 

“Lately I’ve been feeling really, out of place,” he moves his pawn. Akechi blinks at him, bored, but his hands betray his true feelings, fingers rushing to move his pawn forward, hands forceful with barely contained emotion. Akira thinks it’s anger, he isn’t sure. 

“I don’t know how to explain it,” 

“Try harder.” Akechi cuts him off. He looks up to russet eyes looking at him sharply. The world shifts like it has been for days, weeks, months now. Akechi’s eyes remain true. 

He thumbs at the crown of his king. “Nothing feels real.” He admits, fuck easing it slowly he guessed. 

“Nothing feels real and I don’t know why. I can't remember this morning or yesterday but I remember every single day I’ve spent with you, without fail” 

Akechi doesn’t say anything, instead moving his hand across the board to move one of Akira’s pieces for him. 

“I don’t dream anymore,” Akira whispers, feeling like everything will shatter once he says it out loud. It doesn’t but it might as well have. 

All at once the chess board is across the room, pieces flying in every direction, scattering across the floor with a sound akin to a gunshot. Akira doesn’t startle, and that freaks him out more. 

“I always took you for a fool Akira but this is just getting ridiculous,” Akechi’s voice almost a shout, full of anger that sounds so right in his mouth. Akechi’s fingers move swiftly, twirling Akira’s king, black glass on black leather.

Stiffly Akira realizes he’s wearing his gloves again, all at once he feels winded. Akechi doesn’t let him catch his breath.

_“Long time no see.”_

Akira’s head rips with pain, he claws at his hair as memories rush back without mercy. 

_The smell of the sea, the steam of the engine room, a prince, a monster, rage and rage and rage and Akechi. Akechi, who held back. Akechi who screamed until his voice was raw, who snarled and grinded his teeth together with every blow from Akira. Akira’s eyes burning with tears, heart broken and still tearing into pieces as he tried to put Goro Akechi together at the last moment. The deafening slam of the divider slamming shut. The finality of the gunshot._

Goro Akechi was dead. 

Akira couldn’t do anything. 

“Remember now?” Akechi sneers, spitting at Akira and smiling as he flinches in return.

Akira looks on, trying to look straight through him but he can’t, all he sees is Akechi’s destroyed mask, all he hears are his last words, feels the cold metal beneath his fingertips as he claws at the divider with his last strength. 

His hand moves on its own, sliding across Akechi’s cheek and stinging when Akechi slaps it away, scowl on his face.

“Get yourself together Akira,” is all he says, tone bored and annoyed, cutting deeper into Akira as his memories of that day play on a loop in his head.

“H-How? Goro what? What’s going on?” Akira wants to hate how small his voice is but he can’t bring himself too. 

Akechi scoffs, Akira almost cries with how genuine it feels. Nothing like the Akechi he’s seen the past couple weeks. “How am I supposed to know Kurusu?” 

_Some detective you are,_ he wants to say, but the time for that passed. Passed with Akechi on that ship. Maybe it never even came. He manages a few gasps as his memories continue to plague him. From the beginning of his first day in Yongen to Christmas day. 

He remembers a gunshot, gun heavy in his hand as the heavens part around him as he reclaims his fate. 

“What the fuck happened?” He says, coherent at least.

Akechi smirks. Akira could kiss him.

———

He figures it out fast after that. With Akechi’s brilliant detective help. Or rather with Dream Akechi's brilliant detective help. 

That leaves a sour taste in his mouth. 

He figures it out, his dream cognition and Maruki and waking up. He doesn’t leave.

Akechi is colder to him. He doesn’t leave.

“Play a round,” Akira tells him, doesn't ask anymore. Akechi always growls a no, Akira watches his hands twist and struggle to not choke Akira. Instead they aim and land a bullseye, Akira claps. 

“Nice one, 701 right?”

“Akira-“

He tunes him out as he aims and throws, bullseye each time. Akechi rolls his eyes, bares his teeth as they play the next rounds without much talking. 

Akechi ends the game with one well aimed dart. Show off, Akira thinks, and let’s his heart soar. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” Akechi grunts, fixing his gloves around his wrists.

“Like what?” Akira asks. He knows what. 

He looks at Akechi like he hung the stars, like the sun rises everyday solely to shine across his cheeks bones, like the hair on his head can be spun into gold and like his words contain miracles.

He knows. So Akechi doesn’t answer. Instead they walk to the station, and say their good nights. 

Akira doesn’t remember going to sleep. 

———

“When will you tire of this?” Akechi asks one day, the days are still cold, he’s still wearing orange. Akira tells him how much the color suits him and relishes in the blush he gets in return. 

“Of what?” He asks, smoothing the covers on his bed between their bodies. He’s laid on his side facing Akechi, Akechi on his back facing the ceiling. Akira didn’t mind, he got a good view of his profile like this. 

Akechi chuckled, annoyed and rough, like everything about him these days. “Of curry. Obviously, of this dream Akira.” 

He sighed, he liked how Akechi said his name. Every syllable cursed with poison and sometimes, if he’s lucky, almost kissed onto his lips. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “I don’t mind it as much now that I know what’s going on.” 

Akechi changed positions at that, turning to face him. Akira lets his heart race, let’s his mind trick him into believing this is his reality. That time had never moved past November 20.

“You’re pathetic Kurusu,” is all he says, the words are heavy, Akechi looks more than happy to say it to him. 

“I know,” he replies, before closing the gap between them. Kissing him. 

It’s full of teeth, he tastes blood, he doesn’t know if it’s his or Akechi’s. He doesn’t really care until he starts tasting salt too.

Tears, he realized. 

He pulls away and thumbs at the tear tracks on his cheeks. Once he starts he can’t stop. He hiccups and gasps and all but screams as Akechi lays next to him, watching. Auburn hair a halo against Akira’s dull sheets. 

“This is where we had our second kiss,” Akira blubbers out, once he’d stopped gasping. 

Akechi smiles, it feels genuine. Like home.

“Our second one? Do you not remember our first?”

Akira laughs and shoves at him. “Of course I do, it was at the aquarium, near the manatee tanks. I was trying to point a really fat one out to you and you just, grabbed me and kissed me.” He replies, remembering it fondly, despite the way his heart clenches in his chest.

“Manatees are cute,” is all Akechi says.

“You’re cuter,” Akira couldn’t help himself and smiles at the scoff he gets in return.

The attic is cold around them, his tears cool on his face.

“How do you expect me to leave?” Akira breaks the stilted silence, voice broken and soft. He lays back down facing Akechi who hadn’t moved. He stares back at Akira, eyes calculating. 

“Where’s your moral high ground leader?” he replies and Akira adores the fire in his eyes, even as his own cloud with tears again.

“I already left you once,” he says, his hand gingerly stroking against the chords on Akechi’s neck, dipping in the valley of his collarbones and over his Adam's apple all the way to trace the shell of his ear, then his eyebrows and nose. He traces the beautiful bow of his lips, soft beneath his finger, breath warm. “How can you expect me to leave you again?”

Akechi surprises him by kissing the tips of his finger, Akira barely restrains a gasp as a gloved hand holds his higher so Akechi has access to all his fingers. Pressing kisses to each knuckle and nail, down to his palm and around his wrist. 

Akira wants to giggle, wants to tell him it tickles and wants to kiss him some more. All he can do is cry, cry and curse the world and himself. 

Akechi continues his ministrations all the while, until Akira can’t take it anymore and takes his hand back. Wishing he could stay in this pain forever if it meant he had Akechi.

“I’m beginning to resent you” Akechi’s voice is kiss hoarse and still laced with acrid anger. Akira lets out a laugh, loud and bordering on unhinged.

“Just now?” he mumbles, smiling sadly as he wipes his tears away.

“Akira.” 

His name brings him back to himself. His name feels so good in Akechi’s voice. It always has. He looks at him, takes in the features that still have his fingertips burning.

“Your dream, it’s of me loving you,” Akechi starts and holds his hand up as Akira opens his mouth to say _fucking obviously._ “I never hated you, Akira.”

Akira wills himself not to start crying again.

“I tried, really hard. Hated myself more because I couldn't. Despite everything I couldn’t.”

Akira finds his voice then, a whisper. “Why?”

“Your light. Your fire and fight. Your absolute will and hope.” Akira sighed, Akechi kept going. “Your humanity. After everything I’d been through, I no longer believed in the good of people, you managed to be all that powerful and still be _true._ ” 

Akira was breathless, and Akechi’s eyes were so honest, so genuine, it hurt more than anything.

“I wanted to hate you for it. I couldn’t. My _rival.”_

Akira choked on a laugh, a sob, on both. 

“But I’m starting too.” Akechi said, voice steady and powerful. As if he was giving orders, Akira remembered what that sounded like. 

“If you stay here, dreaming, you wouldn’t be that rival. You wouldn’t be the Akira I knew. The Akira I could never hate.”

Akira stares at him, Akechi’s face firm and stubborn and completely self satisfied and right. 

He turns to look across the room, the afternoon sun casting deep shadows across the forever dusty floors. His eyes scan the pictures and items he’s kept, and back at Akechi in his bed. Eyes glowing, chest moving as he breathed in and out, alive, alive, alive. 

He remembers his promise to Akechi, _his_ Akechi. 

Akira leans down once more and kisses him. Softly, kindly, tenderly and tries not to break down again when Akechi kisses him back the same. He spends a few more minutes like that, pressing kiss after to kiss to his lips and confirming it all to memory. 

He lets his hand cup Akechi’s face, fingers twirling one lock of soft hair between his own, pressing a final kiss to his lips. 

Akira leans his forehead against Akechi’s, warm against his own, cheeks flushed with blood and so alive in his hands. He breathed his cologne one last time, Akechi’s fingers on his shirt tightened once, before letting go.

“Do you think I’ll win?” Akira asks him, voice quiet, yet echoing in the attic. Time seemed to still. He didn’t have to look to know the world outside was slowly melting away into nothing, as he let his consciousness catch up to him. From the corner of his eye he sees the sun rays slowly disappear, unnaturally so, darkness creeping towards their haven.

Akechi glides a hand through Akira’s hair, pulling him close, he feels the words against his lips and he can’t help but smile. 

_“I know you will.”_

**Author's Note:**

> lol. I miss writing these boys. i adore the idea of the bad ending being GORO FUCKING LIVING. like great!!!!!! thanks!!!! like thats the bad ending? my asshole. adore the conflict of it though, the angst. I figure that all the pts dreams overlap and fit together but i focused on Akira's with the other pts to kinda structure the rest of the world, except morgana bcs no lol. thanks but no atlus. anyways, hope u enjoyed! 
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Zoldyke_)
> 
> come yell.


End file.
